Okay, way more information (and some scans) have started popping up. This is... really... odd. Definitely a new direction for EO. The graphics and presentation looks the same, pretty much like EO4, except it no longer looks like a "create your own party from the start and just explore" dungeon crawler. Instead there's a main character who you can name (he is voiced in story scenes), and there's a full story where you meet other characters, and they join your party like a story RPG. All the characters appear to be voiced.

The storyline is based on EO1, but there are a ton of changes. The story starts with the main character running into a mysterious girl. The main character is a young man from the Highlands, doing some job for the guild office in Etria, and the girl he runs into is Frederica Irving, who appears to have lost her memory. Her character design has her holding a gun too.

So yeah, an EO1 remake with named characters, voice acting, and more focus on plot. Did anyone really ask for this? It's... somewhat interesting though I must say. It also means you no longer create classes for your party too, since all the party members are actual characters who have their own fixed classes. Hmm...

Then it gets a "we'll' see" from me. Unchained Blades had named, voiced characters and the character development and dungeon crawling weren't compromised, but I honestly can't see a game based on EO1's story being particularly interesting to me before the Fourth Stratum (where the protagonist will undoubtedly angst constantly, but it should be interesting seeing him give in).

Oops, didn't see this topic and I posted this in the EO4 thread. Anyway, I'm cautiously optimistic. The added story elements and fixed characters will severely limit replay value, I think. No one knows for sure if they've complete eliminated the character creation system, so we'll see.

So it's a re-imagining of the original EO now turned into a standard RPG? Not sure if want...

There are some scans available (along with those of Devil Survivor 2).

Well, it's still EO which, at it's heart, is a first person dungeon crawler. Taking away the character creation aspect and adding some story and fixed characters doesn't make it standard. I doubt I would see the casual market rushing out to buy this game.

I know, it's the idea of a set party and a story/character-driven game that turns me off a bit. I would have preferred a straight up EO1 remake. Still, I gotta keep in mind it's a spinoff and very little information is known at the moment.

I just hope it won't have an effect on future main series games. Minimalism is good.